Aníbal Acevedo Vilá
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| Aníbal Acevedo Vilá | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 2, 2005 |
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| Preceded by | Sila María Calderón |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent |
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| Born | February 13, 1962 (age 45) San Juan, Puerto Rico |
| Political party | Popular Democratic Party |
| Spouse | Luisa Gándara |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (born February 13, 1962) is the eighth and current Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. As such, he is a member of the National Governors Association, the Southern Governors' Association, and the Democratic Governors Association.
Acevedo has served in many political posts in Puerto Rico, including being member of the House of Representatives (1993–2001) and Resident Commissioner (2001–2005). Acevedo won the office of Governor on the elections of November 2004, defeating former Governor Pedro Rosselló. However, Acevedo's margin of victory was just 3,566 votes, a result which led to a controversy which involved appeals to the United States federal courts. Acevedo is the first elected governor born after the adoption of the Constitution of Puerto Rico.
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[edit] Early life and education
Acevedo Vilá was born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, a sector of the municipality of San Juan, and attended Colegio San José High School in the same municipality. In 1982, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. He continued his studies in Law at the same campus. He obtained his Juris Doctor in 1985, graduating magna cum laude. After passing the Puerto Rico bar exam, Acevedo Vilá completed a year-long clerkship at the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, where he worked under associate Justice Federico Hernández Denton. In 1987, he obtained a LL.M. degree from Harvard University. From 1987 to 1988, he served as law clerk for the Hon. Levin Hicks Campbell, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts.
[edit] Political career
[edit] House of Representatives
Acevedo Vilá began his political career in 1989 as Legislative Affairs Advisor to Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. In 1992 he was elected Representative At-Large to the Puerto Rico's House of Representatives. He developed his leadership skills during this period and was reelected in 1996. The following year, his party elected him Minority Leader of the House. In February 1997, Acevedo Vilá was elected President of the Popular Democratic Party.
In 1998, Acevedo Vilá participated in a campaign against the Young Bill, a proposed legislative project in the U.S. Congress which sought to resolve the political status of Puerto Rico by defining each proposed status option and calling for a series of referendums. Although the referendum called for in the project would have included the option for Puerto Rico to remain a commonwealth, the option would have to be renewed by island voters every ten years, until they opted for independence or statehood.
Although the project was not approved, Puerto Rico's elected officials under Governor Pedro Rosselló organized a non-binding plebiscite to define Puerto Rico's political status, in which Puerto Ricans were given five options: commonwealth, associated republic, statehood, independence from the United States, or "none of the above".
Acevedo and his party believed the definition of the commonwealth option incorrect because it defined the current political status as territorial. His party campaigned for the "none of the above" option, which ultimately garnered the majority of the votes. (See Puerto Rico status referenda for more information.)
[edit] Resident Commissioner
In 2000, Acevedo Vilá ran for the post of Resident Commissioner for the Commonwealth after defeating José Hernández Mayoral in their party's primary election. Later that year, Acevedo Vilá defeated Carlos Romero Barceló, the incumbent Resident Commissioner.
In the summer of 2003, Governor Sila M. Calderón announced she would not seek a second term on the following year's elections. José Hernández Mayoral surfaced as the likely party's candidate for Governor for the 2004 elections. Months following the announcement, Hernández Mayoral widthdrew from the race, citing personal matters, Acevedo Vilá announced he would run for the Governor's seat.
Acevedo won the Puerto Rico General Elections of 2004 by approximately 3,800 votes (0.2 percent of the vote) over former-governor Pedro Rosselló. However, since the margin of victory was so small, a full recount of the elections took place. During the period, Rosselló filed a civil law suit against Acevedo Vila himself over a dispute of certain ballots that were cast during the elections.
[edit] Mixed votes controversy
The ballots in question were cast both for the Puerto Rico Independence Party and Rosselló's New Progressive Party, with individual candidate marks in favor of Acevedo Vila as the candidate for governor of the Popular Democratic Party. The mark indicating the selection of a political party selects that party's slate of candidates by default, but the voter can also select individual candidates from other parties to replace candidates from the default slate.
The controversy reached the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, which ruled 4-3 that the ballots in question were valid. In its initial opinion, the Supreme Court 4-justice majority used the following interpretation: In the challenged ballots, the voter was voting for the PIP as a party for the purposes of stating party affiliation, and for the PIP's default slate, but had decided to move his vote to individual candidates from other party's slates. This type of voting is permitted in Rule 50 of the State Election Commission's rules, based on the Commonwealth's Electoral Law as amended in 2004, Title 2, Section 2.001, Subsection 3[1], as a "mixed vote." The practice is therefore considered legal and has been published in the official voter's instructions by the State Election Commission for quite some time. This voting option was also allowed and seen in the 1996 and 2000 elections, and had never been contested before, either at the Legislature or by the NPP's Electoral Commissioner. The individual votes for candidates not from the voter's selected party are then deducted from the votes given to the default candidates of the voter's party. The end result is a single vote per candidate.
At the same time, Rosselló challenged the ballots on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico where District Judge Daniel Domínguez ordered the Puerto Rico Election Commission to count the disputed votes but to not adjudicate them to any candidate until he reached a decision on the merits of the case. Acevedo and his team challenged this ruling and the case moved up to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, where three judges ruled the question of whether or not the ballots were properly cast was not a federal constitutional issue and therefore should be decided by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico at the Commonwealth level. The Supreme Court affirmed its prior 4-3 decision. On December 28, 2004 the recount ended and Acevedo was certified as the winner of the elections.
[edit] Governor
Acevedo assumed the post of Governor on January 2, 2005 and has faced many political challenges during his term. This is primarily due to the fact that the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico is controlled by the opposition New Progressive Party (PNP by its acronym in Spanish). In addition, the new Resident Commissioner in Congress is also a member of the PNP, and Acevedo's main political rival, Pedro Rosselló, managed to gain a seat in the Senate of Puerto Rico after a young first-term Senator from Arecibo unexpectedly resigned shortly after taking the oath of office.
[edit] A call for a "Shared Government"
Because the executive and the legislative branches of the government are controlled by different political parties, Governor Acevedo Vilá has called his government a "shared government". During the first months of his term, Acevedo concentrated his efforts on trying to reach bi-partisan support for his bills and for the nominees of his Cabinet. However, when Acevedo vetoed a legislative bill proposed by the PNP the ideal of a peaceful "shared government" collapsed.
During the month of May 2005, confrontations between the executive and the legislative branches reached a new climax when the Puerto Rico legislature voted to override a veto by Acevedo Vilá, thus becoming the first democratically-elected governor to have a veto overridden by the legislature. Later in June, Acevedo and the legislature were frequently at odds about the budget proposal. The budget proposed by the Governor was not accepted by the leaders of the PNP in the legislature and they proposed a different budget, which Acevedo vetoed in August 2005.
Acevedo has stated his government inherited a difficult financial situation from the previous administration. He announced his administration was working with a deficit of over $400 million. Because of this, Governor Acevedo proposed several measures to control the deficit. Among these were salary reductions for certain government employees, accelerated retirement plans, decrease in cellphone usage, retirement or transfer of excess vehicles from pools, across-the-board cuts of 10% to all agency budgets, a government hiring freeze with strict waiver requirements, and an increase in the prices of water and electricity services in order to bring the rates in line with nationwide rates and reduce the need to subsidize these quasi-public utility companies. These tough economic measures were clearly needed, but they still resulted in the Governor receiving a negative approval rating for the first nine months of his administration.
The largest newspaper in Puerto Rico, El Nuevo Día, published a poll which showed that more than 49% percent of the population graded the governor's efforts and work as either a D or an F. Acevedo-Vilá is, therefore, the lowest rated Governor in the history of Puerto Rico.
[edit] Partial Government Shut-down
However, new tensions surfaced during the month of April 2006, when Acevedo announced the central government of Puerto Rico did not have enough funds to pay the salary of public employees for the months of May and June. The Governor asked the Legislature to approve a loan of over $500 million dollars so that the government could keep the agencies running. The Senate approved the loan, but the House of Representatives refused to do so. Acevedo then announced that most of the government agencies would shut down beginning May 1, and would remain closed unless the House approved the new loan.
The partial government shutdown lasted two weeks, until Governor Acevedo, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House reached an agreement to end the shutdown. The details of the agreement included the approval of a new loan as well as new fiscal reforms that would impose a sales tax and require the reduction of operational costs of the central government of the island.
However, the process for the approval of the proposed fiscal reforms also involved confrontation between Acevedo and the Legislature. The Speaker of the House originally wanted a sales tax of 5.5% (4% commonwealth sales tax and 1.5% municipal sales tax) and the Governor preferred one of 7% (5.5% commonwealth sales tax and 1.5% municipal sales tax). Amazingly, the House sent an incorrectly drafted bill to the Senate for approval that would give the governor what he wanted. Influential members of the Speaker's own political party noticed the mistake, but chose to do nothing. The Senate immediately approved the bill, and the result was a total sales tax of 7%.
When the Speaker of the House realized the mistake he made, he desperately sought to recall the bill and make corrections. However, the Governor argued the legislative process was over when both houses had approved the bill. After the Speaker refused to send the bill to Acevedo for his signature, the Governor sought a mandamus from the Supreme Court to order the Speaker to send the bill for his signature. The Speaker at one point openly stated he would not obey a decision of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ordering him to turn over the bill, but later recanted under intense public and party pressure. On July 2006 the high court, by a 5-1 majority, ordered the Speaker to send the bill to the governor. The original bill was finally signed by Acevedo the next day. The municipal sales tax went into effect immediately, and the state sales tax began on November 15.
[edit] Controversies since assuming office
Since he won election as Resident Commissioner, the political opposition has been relentless in accusing Governor Acevedo of different violations. Allegations by Carlos Romero Barceló led to the filing of professional conduct charges in the Federal Court for the District of Puerto Rico, which ended with a written reprimand against Governor Acevedo, who stated he would not pursue the matter further because he felt the charges were politically motivated and the judges biased.
During the 2004 political campaign for the governorship, the Popular Democratic Party which he leads as president purchased a number of expensive Italian suits for his use in television appearances, among other activities. The purchases were paid for in cash, which the party states was provided by PPD supporters specifically for the clothing. It is alleged, but has never been proven, that these suits were purchased using state electoral matching funds, and as such were an illegal expenditure. No charges have been filed but investigations continue.[2]
A Philadelphia healthcare contractor is claimed to have used a number of names to make illegal campaign contributions to the campaigns of several politicians, including Acevedo Vila's, during the 2000 political campaign, allegedly to ensure the granting of government contracts. [1].
This has been the subject of several subpoenas from federal investigators. Governor Acevedo has denied any wrongdoing related to this issue.
During the period of September - October 2006, several news sources have reported that a Federal Grand Jury is investigating donations made to the Acevedo Vila campaign fund during the years 2001 and 2002 by the aforementioned contractor and a Puerto Rico based associate. News sources indicate the donations made by the duo to the Acevedo Vila campaign fund during that period, could total $68,000. Since last summer, several key members of Acevedo Vilá's Cabinet have been either interviewed by the FBI or called to testify before the Grand Jury investigating the Governor, including Fortaleza Chief of Staff and former Economic Development and Comerce Secretary, Jorge Silva Puras, Press Secretary Juanita Colombani, former Housing Secretary Ileana Echegoyen, former Health Services Administrator Nancy Vega, and former Fortaleza Chief of Staff Aníbal José Torres. [2].
[edit] See also
- List of famous Puerto Ricans - Governors
- Young Bill
- Popular Democratic Party
- Governor of Puerto Rico
[edit] External links
- La Fortaleza - Official Governor's Website - in Spanish.
- Popular Democratic Party - in Spanish.
- FBI ties in probe of Puerto Rico race
| Preceded by Carlos Romero Barceló |
Resident Commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives from Puerto Rico 2001-2005 |
Succeeded by Luis Fortuño |
| Preceded by Sila María Calderón |
Governor of Puerto Rico 2005 – present |
Incumbent |
| Preceded by Luis Fortuño |
United States order of precedence as of 2006 |
Succeeded by Stephen Hadley |
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Luis Muñoz Marín • Roberto Sánchez Vilella • Luis A. Ferré • Rafael Hernández Colón |
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| Resident Commissioners of Puerto Rico |  |
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| Degetau • Larrinaga • Muñoz Rivera • Córdova Dávila • Pesquera • Iglesias • Pagán • Piñero • Fernós-Isern Polanco • Córdova • Benítez • Corrada del Río • Fuster • Colorado • Romero Barceló • Acevedo Vilá • Fortuño |
| Popular Democratic Party Gubernatorial Nominees | |
|---|---|
| Muñoz Marín | Sánchez Vilella | Negrón López | Hernández Colón | Muñoz Mendoza | Acevedo | Calderón | Hernández Mayoral | Acevedo Vilá |
